Soulmate AU || Para 01
ocdixie:
Dixie’s sheepish expression warmed a little as Dallas stood in front of her. She took a half step back as he lifted from his chair, her eyes lifting. She herself was a tall woman, and it surprised her a little that he had some height on her. Everything about his appearance took her a little off guard. She was pretty sure no matter how many times she met up with him for supplemental information or follow up interviews she would be shocked to the core that it wasn’t a small, bent over old man in her company. Perhaps a little rudely, she stared at their hands together, her left hand lifting automatically to hold his hand between both of hers. She was a warm person, the gesture was natural for her, and her mind was much too consumed with the surprise that his handshake felt firm and strong despite his true age.
“And ma’am is my mother,” she replied with a gentle twang, a warm smile spreading across her features. “Dixie will do just fine for me, Dallas.” She made a point of using the name he had requested, letting go of his hand and smoothing out her skirt a little, a nervous habit. Her eyes flickered back upward when he said it was a pleasure, and the thin, gentle smile returned to her features as she peered up at him. “I could say the same myself.”
In the next moment she was digging through her bag trying to find her wallet wherever she had carelessly tossed it in in her hurry. “Oh, are you sure? I had planned to get a drink myself and really it’s no trouble,” she babbled into the gaping opening of her purse. “Consider it a thank you for meeting with me, really, I’d be more than happy to—I swear I put it in here this morning.” By the end she had trailed off and away from her offer and was talking only to herself. She stood up straight again figuring she might have an easier time of finding the wallet once her supplies had been dumped from the large bag.
“I’ll need a moment to set up,” she told Dallas, pulling a notebook and a small device out of her bag. She nodded toward his seat again, mumbling, “Please, sit,” as she settled down into the chair across from him. Her thin hands flipped through her notebook until they found the page where she had already begun compiling notes about him in a neat, loopy script. Carefully, she placed the device between the two of them and caught his eye. “Would you mind if I recorded our session today? I’ll be taking notes by hand as well and I’ll be more than able to work with those, so whatever you’re comfortable with is fine.”
Dixie waited until Dallas had had time to consider and give her answer before handling the recording device. She folded her hands primly in front of her and gave a small nod. “Alright, Dallas, we’re on the record now. I’d like you to know that at any point you have the right to end the interview,” she explained in a careful tone. “You don’t owe me anything, so I want you to know that you are at liberty to choose whether or not you want to answer any of these questions. If you find I ask you something that you don’t care to speak to, I accept that—no explanation or apology necessary. You just let me know and we’ll move right along, alright?” She had looked him right in the eye as she explained all of this. For this journalistic project, it was one of the most important parts to her. These were people’s lives she was probing into, and she did not take it light or for granted. “Share what you’re willing to, you still have a right to your privacy.”
The woman sat back a little, visibly relaxing after the somber disclaimer. Pen in hand she was poised to ask her first question. She wanted to start the interviews off slow and communicate she saw her subjects as people who shared her humanity. “First question,” she said, eyes flickering away from her page of notes to check up on Dallas, “How are you doing today?” She waited politely for him to have a chance to answer. Some people laughed at her when they got this question, but she had always felt it was polite to ask and a suitable warm up for both journalist and subject. “Unless you have something else you’d like to begin with, I think it might make sense to first talk about your early life? When and where you were born? The family structure, early education, anything you remember from childhood. Does anything stand out? This session will be very… broad.” It took her a moment to think of the right word, her twangy accent a little thicker when she finally thought of it. “Think of it as me gathering a survey of your life, whatever you’re willing to share, that is, to reflect on and think of deeper questions to explore in our next session.”
Dallas wasn’t sure Dixie was ready for what she wanted to hear. In fact, the way she stared at their hands only reminded him that people had a tendency to treat him like a relic when they first met, but he had no doubt Dixie would shake off the shock. It didn’t bother him, it simply reaffirmed the fact that he had done so much in his life that nothing really surprised him lately. Perhaps the only thing that would truly change him would be finding his soulmate, and his isolation on his farm left little room for that to happen. He preferred to almost keep it that way instead of join things that were made to “help” find your soulmate in the world.
Her flurry of words as she searched through her purse actually made a smile tug at Dallas’ features. She was kind, that much he could already tell. It wasn’t very often that he found someone genuine, and already he felt more at ease with her. He sat down once she finally did, placing the hat snug on his head once more as he got comfortable into the booth. They were going to be there for a while, so Dallas figured getting slightly more relaxed wasn’t going to harm anyone. “Nah, miss’m. Y’can do whatever it is y’think is necessary,” he said quietly, looking at the recording device and figuring it would be better if she did. His accent could get thick at times, and the last thing he wanted was to have to repeat things too many times and say it incorrectly.
Dixie’s disclaimer about the interview made Dallas look up to meet her gaze again. The words were nice to hear, especially because he wasn’t sure he could make it through the whole interview. Reliving one hundred and twenty years of life was not something he did fairly easily, and he could overwhelm himself just at the thought of making things worse for himself. “I understand, Miss Dixie,” he agreed after a moment, meeting her gaze with something akin to gratefulness.
“I’m real nervous,” he said immediately, furrowing his eyebrows as his gaze dropped down to her notebook. Dallas couldn’t see if anything was on the page, but it didn’t bother him at all. He knew she had spoken to others; thoughts about whether or not they were older or younger than him crossed his mind, but that information wasn’t for him. Dallas knew he wasn’t alone – there were many in the world that were older than him, and they’d been on the news every now and then. Many didn’t make it long enough to reach their soulmate. There was the idea that maybe your soulmate hadn’t been born yet, and waiting to find that one person out of billions was taxing. Dallas had stopped looking a while ago, and now he was resigned to his fate that would eventually swallow him whole. He had no intention on telling that to anyone, not until someone found him one day and had a burial spot for him in Arlington alongside the men he fought with in World War I.
“Well, I was born in 1896, down in New Orleans, Louisiana,” he started, picking up a tooth pick and standing it upright. It was one simple thing to keep him half distracted, and he continued on after just a moment’s hesitation, “Back then, they was still recoverin’ after the civil war. Kinda ruined Louisiana ‘n all that. M’dad was a former plantation owner. Lost most’a his money since his dad passed it ont’a him on the verge’a bankruptcy. My momma was a housewife. She was from up North, somewhere in Illinois,” he cleared his throat, sitting up a bit straighter. “N’Orleans was just how y’thought it would be. They was rebuildin’ it still and it turned in’t what everyone knew it as. I missed the rise of it all, but I still consider it m’home. We moved ‘round a lot once m’dad sold the place for less than half it’s value, ‘n when he passed, I was about twelve, m’momma thought it would’a been best to home school me. Ain’t too sure why, but she wasn’t good at it. She tried, but by the time I turned eighteen, Europe was a goddamn mess and I had t’get outta the South while I could.”













